Many diseases and conditions of humans and animals require surgical treatment. In recent years, some types of surgery previously utilizing a large incision into a body cavity wall have been supplanted by laparoscopic techniques which utilize several small openings into the body cavity wall. In these types of surgery, laparoscopic techniques have decreased the length of inpatient hospital stays, improved post-surgical cosmetic results, and in many cases have decreased morbidity and mortality, thereby saving costs.
Certain technically complex surgical procedures such as subtotal colectomy, however, are difficult to perform laparoscopically. In traditional, non-laparoscopic surgery, the technical requirements of these procedures were accomplished in part by surgeons using their hands directly to palpate lesions in order to determine the extent of the necessary dissection, and to manipulate and dissect tissue accurately within the body cavity.
Conventional laparoscopic surgery, however, excludes direct manual palpation, manipulation and dissection by the surgeon. For some procedures such as cholecystectomy, this exclusion may not be significantly disadvantageous. For other procedures such as subtotal colectomy, however, the lack of direct manual palpation, manipulation and dissection renders the surgery difficult to perform laparoscopically, and is therefore a cause of continued resistance to performing these procedures laparoscopically.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to have a method of performing these complex surgeries in a body cavity which incorporate the advantages of laparoscopic techniques with the advantages of direct manual palpation, manipulation and dissection. Further, it would be advantageous to have a device which would permit the surgeon to use direct manual skills with conventional laparoscopic techniques, to obtain the benefits of both in one surgical procedure.